


ave, ave dominus

by r1ker



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, M/M, i fixed it y'all!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-10 08:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5578096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r1ker/pseuds/r1ker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>han gets one more chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. gratia plena

**Author's Note:**

> if you know me well enough han solo is my bi son
> 
> and i cannot let him go
> 
> he lived
> 
> that's all
> 
> if you want to cry just listen to this and read https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fi5ysr9cLA

He remembers falling a little too well.

 

There’s something still clicking in him that allows him to register the dull thud of his body hitting the bottom of the shaft, the roar of the stab wound brought on by the lightsaber, and the rushing of the blood in his ears. Everything seems so distant, surrounded by a hazy cloud of what could be caused by blood loss but he’d never figure it out. What with how his brain’s working on halftime now, it’s a miracle he’s even able to register the pairs of hands pulling him from the void.

 

Waking up is almost as equally disorienting. His mouth is dry as cotton, then swallowing to relieve it causes a wildfire to start in his chest, and getting up simply isn’t an option. Unless he wants to bust a stitch or tear a bandage, he isn’t going anywhere but this mysterious bed.

 

It’s not a terrible bed by any means, he’s slept in his fair share of strange places (among them being a puddle outside a cantina when he had one or seven oddly mixed drinks), so he takes it easy until the first figure he’ll see today appears in the doorway.

 

“Han Solo,” a familiar voice calls like it did hours, days before. He knows who it is in an instant, and when the person steps forward he breathes in relief to see that it’s none other than Maz Kinata here to see him. “Don’t do that again.”

 

“Do what?” he asks hoarsely, pretending to be oblivious of the trap he had lured himself into with Ben. Han thinks of his son now, knowing that the “that” Maz is speaking of is something Ben himself forged, a brand of evil he never would have known of had it not been for several things Han doesn’t really want to think about right now.

 

“Taking a lightsaber to the chest, falling somewhere where it took my team twenty minutes to figure out how to get you out without losing one of your limbs in the process,” she scathes. Small but fiery is how she’s always been but she never fails to be tender, striding to his bedside without rapport to take one of his hands in hers.

 

“He never did this to me when he was a baby,” Han groans when he looks down at the maroon seeping in at the edges of the bandage on his chest. “The worst he did was piss on me when he was a couple months old. If only then I knew he’d move on to much more unsavory things.”

 

“Babies get older, turn into people like us and get meaner,” Maz speculates as she moves to change the ruined bandage without hesitation. It’s a quick affair, swapping out pieces of the wrap and replacing them with clean squares of gauze. Her touch is delicate, her soft spot for Han never firming even after years of encounters, and soon she finishes.

 

“I never thought he’d be like this, to tell you the truth,” Han reflects on. He remembers the early days, and by early he means watching Leia deliver their son without any interference from assigned medical droids, raising that screaming little bald thing into a boy who loved the rain and blueberries in his waffles, and now into a man devoid of their brand of compassion.

 

Letting out a slow breath as easily as he can without prodding the quilled beast taking residence in his muscles, he wrings a hand over his face. “I used to do this thing with him, hold him over my face and walk down the halls of the _Falcon_. ‘Eighteen pounds of pure terror!’”

 

He snickers lightly as he changes his voice on the last few words to mimic the intimidating tone he had then, remembering the jolt of Ben’s belly as he laughed with all the passion a ten-month-old should have. “That was my boy, Maz. The best friend I could have ever asked for outside of Luke and Leia.”

 

“He’s still your boy, just… misplaced,” Maz replies like the last word took her a few seconds longer than she anticipated to say. “And it’ll be yours and Leia’s job to find him again. You’ll have to search a little bit longer than you will have wanted to but in the end, he’ll be there. He’ll be waiting for you, I’m sure of it.”

 

“Yeah?” Han says to Maz’s easy nod. “You’re confident for sure.” Her mouth pulls up at the corner as a sign of indifference; she’s never felt the need to be too pessimistic, and with her good friend, he needs all the positivity she can give him right now.

 

“Someone has to be,” is all she says before patting his arm and leaving him to recuperate.

 

Maz’s crew lets him back on an inhabited planet after several more weeks, only hitting one setback when a nightmare had him plowing out of bed much too energetically for the tender stitches in his skin. That little bout hurt like a bitch, no doubt about it, but soon after Maz has replaced the sutures with more than one under the breath grumble, he’s back out in the world again.

 

The first order of business is getting to a comm, letting Chewie know that hell was full and he’s on his way back. It’s a little harder than he thought to punch in the info for the _Falcon_ but he does and gets a familiar answering grunt on the other end of the line.

 

“Chewie?” he asks and the grunt goes frantic, frenzied noises made of none other than excitement and joy. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m on, uh…” He looks around and searches his brain for wherever in the galaxy he could possibly be right now, and remembers by the look of the landscape after a few seconds. “Danita. That sound familiar?” Chewbacca practically trills in response and he smiles. “Good deal. Come and get me, would you?”

 

About an hour or so later, the _Falcon_ is touching down in the distance. God, Chewie’s gone the distance to clean the old thing, its hull shining a bit more brightly than it did in the past. Han tries not to break for his beloved ship in a mad dash, settles on a brisk stride.

 

The door opens with a hiss and Chewie lingers in the doorway, wary of the fact that his captain’s still a bit roughed up, and steps forward to gently hug Han against him. Han’s never been so happy to see the big fellow in his entire life, fur near his face more welcoming than ever.

 

“Thanks for not smothering me with affection,” Han says when they begin their way back to the _Falcon_. Chewie mumbles something that could be words of _you’re welcome_ but Han doesn’t catch it. Instead he almost catches Rey at a dead run as she rounds a corner in the hallway they’re in.

 

“Oh, Han,” she says, throwing both her arms around his neck loosely to make room for his healing wound. “I’m sorry.”

 

“For what?” he asks seriously. What in the world could there be for her to apologize for? Allowing his son to stab him, thinking that his actions would be good enough to further the agenda of his dead grandfather? He shakes his head, holds her a little closer. “Don’t sweat it, it’s nothing a few months of recuperation and a couple hundred stitches couldn’t fix.”

 

“I saw it,” she says with the most dread he’s ever heard someone have while speaking to him. “I knew you were dead. I just didn’t think…” She trails off when her voice splinters at the edges with tears. “Who brought you back?”

 

“Remember our old friend Maz? She took one for the team, had her group get me back into shape,” he explains to her grateful sigh. “Stitched me up, repaired something that had to do with a tear in the space around my heart, and here we are.” He presses two fingers gently to his chest. “Good as new. Or so I hope.”

 

“Me too,” she responds with a smile that borders on beaming. The three go back to the cockpit of the _Falcon_ and Rey can’t stop staring at Han even as they take off in voyage to the Resistance’s base. The journey is short, and Han can’t help but stare at the scenery that passes by the windows as if they’re things he’s seeing again for the first time. Hell, even the damned asteroid belt he’d nearly given himself a concussion on once while dropping out of warp a little too fast is a beautiful sight; something in him wants to reach out and touch it as to say _thank God I’m back._

 

His mending heart clenches once the base is in sight, and Chewie intones with a growl.

 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m alright,” he reassures his first mate. “Just a little nervous. Keep in mind all of them think I’m dead and rotting somewhere in hyperspace.”

 

“I forgot to tell you,” Rey pipes up as Chewie brings them down closer near a landing pad. “We brought Luke back.”

 

Han’s mouth again goes dry like it did as he was waking up from the fog. Seeing Luke again was something he thought would never be possible. He remembers watching Luke leave with a throat choked with tears; his eyes filled with more shame than someone like him should ever have if you had to ask Han. Something in him is curious to see what Luke is like now, the years having finally caught up to the boy from Tatooine who started it all, and he’s more eager to get off the Falcon now than ever.

 

“How is he?” Han’s voice is brusque as he inquires about the status of his friend. He clears his throat in an attempt to get it to clear but still the lump remains after several seconds of trying to recollect emotions that are newly arising.

 

“It wasn’t easy,” Rey says darkly. He can see in her response to his question that the road to recovery for Luke, getting him away from the wild goose chase that was finding the First Jedi Temple, wasn’t as easy as someone would anticipate. “We had to convince him to come back, almost bargain with him. It took a lot of talking but Leia got him to the base. He wasn’t in the best of shape.” She pauses to let out a slow bout of air through her pursed lips.

 

She can see it clear as day, the droids hovering over Luke’s prone form prattling off statistics and measurements that didn’t sound anywhere near normal for a human, Leia in the corner of the room with stormy eyes. That day was one she’d never forget as long as she lived, his lightsaber in the loops of her belt and his sister’s hands in his own, imploring him to get well quick.

 

Chewie sets the _Falcon_ down on the loamy earth easily and puts it into a parked state. Han lingers a second in his seat before getting up. His feet seem heavier as he walks out of the ship and onto the base. Real grass and dirt feel strange beneath his boots, the gentle give of the earth reassuring him that this isn’t just his spirit going back home for reckoning, it’s his body too.

 

Poe and Finn are gathered around a TIE fighter, conversing lightly when Poe spots Han over Finn’s shoulder. His eyes go bright, mouth dropping open a little, and he gently pulls his friend to him and begins the walk to Han.

 

“Oh, aren’t we glad to see you,” he says while shaking Han’s hand firmly. Poe pauses and lets Han’s hand stay in his for a few seconds longer to remind him that a friend he once knew is back to stay for good. “You’re going to want to get inside. I’m sure there are tons more wanting to see you, hmm?” Han nods, claps one hand to Poe then Finn’s shoulder in tokens of appreciation, and makes his way past them to the headquarters.

 

There she stands in the midst of her people, her pilots and her troopers, short in stature but seven feet tall in personality. Leia was the first he ever loved in a way he knew was deep and genuine, steadier than anything he knew in his life up until that point. From the side glance he’s got of her he can see she looks exhausted, more deep down than the superficial way they’ve all been for years, running around the galaxy in a never-ending chase.

 

“Leia,” he says quietly. When the buzz of people doesn’t stop even as he calls out her name, he decides to repeat it a little louder. “Leia.” She stops and the papers in the file in her hand scatter to the floor in a white sheath. Shoving past the same people she was speaking to seconds before she comes to him and stands as close as she can get.

 

Without saying a word she reaches up with all her might and wraps her arms tightly around his neck. He lets his hands settle at the small of her back, the familiarity of her figure something he’s yearned for in the last few weeks. After a while she’s making the collar of his shirt run damp with her tears. They’re not frantic, falling slowly as she realizes the significance of what’s happening right now.

 

“You leave me again,” she begins softly to where only he can hear it, “and I’ll finish the job myself.” He nods, knowing death won’t ever be possible again unless it’s on her watch and up to her specifications. Leia pulls back from him and tugs him by the hand. “Luke will want to see you.”

 

“I’ve heard he went and got old on us,” Han tries to joke but stops at the attempt to be a wisecracker when he sees her eyes, imploring at him to take this seriously.

 

“No, he let himself deteriorate,” she corrects when they round the corner to the medical ward. There, Luke recovers from a host of maladies someone gets when they seclude themselves in search for a mythical temple, exhaustion and malnutrition and the like. In the past few weeks he’s made great strides, greater than anyone in the Resistance would have thought were possible given all he’s been through.

 

Han gets full sight into what’s happened to Luke when they stop in front of the viewing window before his room. The figure in the bed is nothing like what he remembers of Luke, the blond hair fully gray now and shaggier than it’s been in a long time. His face is worn, dug in deeply with marks years past have drawn on him. Still his essence remains, the slightness of the figure familiar to Han from what he can remember of what he and Luke happened long before Leia and Ben were what they were to him.

Leia opens the door softly, mindful of Luke’s closed eyes and slow breathing signaling to her that he’s in the middle of much needed rest. She steps forward and places one hand on his shoulder lightly and he stirs awake at her touch. Blinking slowly, he surveys the room around him like it’s changed much since he’s been asleep for however long it has been, and stops in his tracks when he sees Han by the doorway.

 

Luke’s face screws up with potential tears. It’s something Han hasn’t seen in a long time, the last time being his farewell to the three of them – Ben screaming all the while for him to come back, that he was sorry it happened, that he wishes he could make better what he had done – and he had hoped even then that it would be the last time he’d have to see Luke like that. It breaks and Luke lets out a heartbroken sob, one hand going over his mouth to muffle the sound of it.

 

Han’s at Leia’s side in an instant following that and accepts one of Luke’s hands holding onto his for dear life. His grip is strong, and it is contradicting the weakness he had first come to the resistance’s base with. Han leans down over him, wrapping his arms around Luke’s shoulders and pretending like the bones there were that prominent the last time they did this.

 

“You look good gray,” Han whispers even as Luke’s sobs pick up in pitch, trying to lighten the mood just a little because he is indeed back. Luke still is not reassured even when he’s holding onto the person he _felt_ die. He knew the second Han had died; it hit him like a freight train, a jab to his chest much like the lightsaber, a resounding sense of loneliness and fear like he never had known.

 

“You look good alive,” Luke cries out and just his voice is music to Han’s ears. It’s considerably softer than it was when they were first meeting at the cantina, worn around the edges and sounding in a way he only reserved for Han. Han presses his cheek to the side of Luke’s head, feeling the bristle of his hair pass along his skin. The touch is electrifying, the contact exhilarating, and Han’s glad he can have this again. After all, something beforehand threatened to split them apart forever.


	2. benedicta tu in mulieribus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the conclusion; the two sort some things out about what has occurred.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> had to wrap up the gay sappiness somehow
> 
> hope you enjoyed!

He’s still holding onto Luke even after Leia’s gone back to the main room of the base. Han’s back is starting to ache in the position he’s in but he could care less. There’s not a limit to the amount of pain he’d suffer for Luke to feel at ease. He’d be the one in the bed in a second, bones showing through his skin and face drawn tight with tension and wear. If only he could have come across that celestial being to grant him that, maybe this would all be different.

 

One of Luke’s hands is feeling for the bandage at Han’s chest. He makes a wounded noise once his palm rests on the center of it, his touch gentle but probing as if he could feel the severed skin and muscles through this simple contact. “Ben did this to you.” His voice is so tired despite however many hours he’s managed to sleep since being at the Resistance base. Han wishes it was him in the bed, taking away suffering Luke would never need to feel for a second in his lifetime.

 

“I was telling Maz that it’s not unlike the time he peed on me,” Han mumbles and Luke releases a shuddering sigh even though Han’s joking, one hand finding the back of Han’s head. Nothing in the world could make Luke’s fingers lose their gentle touch, startling contrasting the passion he possesses in battle. “Here, scoot over and let me sit.” Luke inches over on the bed and lets Han rest on the edge of the mattress.

 

“Don’t leave me like that again, would you?” Han asks of him and he watches Luke close his eyes and nod as if to seek contrition. Like he was thinking of earlier, the day Luke left it all behind is still very vivid in his mind. Even he was begging Luke to rethink going off on that wild goose chase he just had to start, holding Luke’s hands in his as if this simple gesture would anchor him to their home forever.

 

“I had to know,” is all Luke says in response to his question. There’s a lot of stuff Han’s felt Luke has had to have the answer to that should have been left well enough alone for the time being. But that’s just Luke, a component of the man he’s grown to love over many years, and he nods in understanding. “I had to go out there and find out for myself. That stopped me from doing a lot more drastic things you three shouldn’t have been subjected to.”

 

“Bet you didn’t anticipate on one of them being you going away for over twenty years,” Han retorts and again Luke makes a sound like he’s being subjected to pain. Then he realizes his fault, knows Luke’s still delicate and working with this along with a large host of other things, and works on fixing it. “Sorry.”

 

“I felt it,” Luke starts with regret. “When he stabbed you. It was so sudden, like I was standing there and someone came behind me with a bat and took a swing. Felt about as painful as that, too.” Han has no doubt in Luke’s statement that he in fact felt it all; Luke’s always been intoned to those sorts of things, and Han didn’t think for a second they’d end up applying to him when something like this happened. “It stung; does that make any sense? It’s like when someone smacks you for no reason at all and the only answer they can give you for why they did it isn’t good enough at all to justify it.”

 

“Same on this end, the dingus got me right above the heart,” says Han with a tone of painful reflection. “I sure as hell didn’t train him to hit above the belt. You didn’t either.” If you had to ask him, he doesn’t remember training Ben to do much of anything even remotely violent outside of knocking over tin cans with one of the Falcon’s small blasters (that was one of the many good days he had with his son, he finds himself reliving it when he dwells on just how wrong it all went so fast).

 

“I wanted so much for him,” Luke sighs regretfully. Han knows it better than anything. Out of the four of them Luke was the most hopeful for the future, more willing to see the good that may or may not be waiting for them down the road. Though there usually wasn’t a good amount of it most of the time, Luke still retained the possibility that there’d be more for them. “I knew it from when he was born that he was destined for good… not this.”

 

“How you saw such goodness in perhaps the loudest child ever brought into this universe says a lot,” Han cracks and for the first time in too long he sees the corners of Luke’s mouth promise a smile. It’s so new but yet so familiar that it makes his chest ache a little. “You know it as well as anyone; he had a set of lungs on him, yeah?”

 

“It would have come in handy if Jedi screamed a lot,” Luke sends right back and Han muffles a laugh. Before Ben learned to talk he seemed to yell to respond to whatever they had to say. When he did learn how to use words, his first one was, appropriately, “No.” What it was said in response to Han can’t remember right now but he knows it had to have been good to get him to stop shrieking in answer. “I saw it first when he smiled at me for the first time, when he was a couple of months old.”

 

“Don’t get all sentimental, it was probably gas knowing how he was at that age,” Han teases. Though he says this he knows Ben was a smiley little thing when he was younger, kind to anything that happened to cross his path be it big or small, grumbly or chipper. But God, when he was mad it was like all hell had managed to break loose in an instant. That sort of duality was something Han admired in his son, able to go from zero to one hundred just a little too quickly. Admired? Hell it was funny.

 

“What does he look like now?” Luke asks him. Han forgets the last time the guy saw his nephew when he was twelve and there’s certainly been a good deal of development on his son’s part. He’s taller, that’s for sure; Han was certain he’d never meet anyone that stood in between his and Chewbacca’s height. Those eyes that smoldered like they were extinguishing a strong flame, freckles he always told Han he hated still prominent on his face. ( _Angel kisses,_ Leia had explained to Ben when he was around four and wanting to know any way possible of getting rid of the marks he had grown to hate)

 

“He’d be a real social butterfly, a charmer if the circumstances were different,” Han answers while trying his best to recall his son’s features from what he can remember. Though the wound he sustained was to his chest, the blood loss seemed to have a play in causing his memory to lapse a little. What he does remember is a structured face, heavy brow and mild forehead. Easily the most unique person he’s ever had the fortune of looking at.

 

“Don’t know where he got all that dark hair he has now. Not from me, that’s for sure.” Answering that last comment, one of Luke’s hands, the one not made of anodized steel, cards through his hair mindlessly. “I do know what he got from Leia. I’d know those eyes anywhere.”

 

“Oh,” Luke sputters, “I knew that when he was a baby. They were blue for a while, you remember that?” Han does, and it was strange. They were about as light as Luke’s, irises nearly clear with a blue not entirely unlike the water in the pond near the home they shared together. To watch them go from that light color to swimming in pure darkness is almost disorienting when Han thinks about it now, all those years later.

 

“Still a handsome fellow, don’t you worry,” Han reassures. “Looks more like Leia than I ever thought would be possible. Hopefully soon she’ll get to see it for herself.” He pauses, running a hand over his face while racking his brain for the particular conversation he had with Rey on the way back to the Resistance base. _Poe is heading up a team to go out and find him. Since the First Order dissolved, their members will be seeking shelter. It shouldn’t take long to find him, seeing as how there are so few places welcoming to him._ “Some of the guys out there are going around, trying to see if he’s hiding anywhere.”

 

“The First Order is no more, isn’t it?” A nod and Han watches Luke relax back into the pillow. There’s not a lot of evidence to support its full extinction but it’s safe to say now, weeks down the road from the destruction of their prime weapon that they won’t be trying to regroup anytime soon.

 

“I wouldn’t disagree with someone saying that to me,” says Han with simplicity. Luke nods and lets his hand find Han’s again, both of them resting with palms down on the bed sheets. “Don’t worry, it’s getting handled. Surprisingly well considering I’m not out there like I would have been years ago.”

 

Luke smiles at him, a bit more broadly this time. Something he’ll always admire in Han is his incessant need to be in on the action. It’s not unlike how Luke thinks of himself but it’s more passionate, more insistent to be a prime player in the game they seem to always be playing with other members of the galaxy.

 

“We’ve got business to tend to,” Han says to Luke’s eyebrow rising a little in genuine curiosity. “We’ve got to get that shaved off your face.” He’s referring to the full beard swept across Luke’s features, almost entirely gray given his age.

 

“What if I happen to like it,” Luke retorts to his chin tilting in a little defiance. He’s not entirely turned off to the idea of facial hair as it is; since he wasn’t able to grow much of it in the past for reasons passing understanding, it’s an unfamiliar but alright feeling. His hand comes up to brush against it.

 

“Then that makes one of you,” Han jokes and moves Luke’s hand from his face to put it in his own. “It makes you look different. It’s not easy to see that face underneath all this hair.” He brushes one knuckle against Luke’s chin, almost feeling him lean into his touch in response. Truth be told he’s not entirely turned off to the beard but after all he’s been through, there’s something in him that just wants to see that face devoid of any distractions.

 

“I’ll shave in time,” Luke mumbles and again he closes the gap that’s formed between them. His nose brushes against Han’s, really a mindless gesture meant for his own comfort rather than anything else. Han lets out a small breath and leans up more to press his forehead against Luke’s.

 

“How did you know I got hurt like you did?” Han asks him simply out of a request to hear their bond reiterated.

 

“After a long time spent with you, you start to know things,” Luke explains. He’s gone soft around the edges with his words again, like they did before he and Leia fell together. There are a lot of things Han appreciates in his life and among them is the look Luke is giving him right now, relieved and concerned at the same time.

 

Luke gives him a look like what they’re doing ought to end soon before it implies anything other than genuine concern. “Might want to go show your face around out there. A lot of people were hoping you’d make it.” He really ought to, there are people he wouldn’t mind seeing again just to remind them that he is in fact not dead, but for now, staying at Luke’s side isn’t a bad option at all.

 

Han won’t budge from his current position to give people he’s spoken to perhaps twice since his journey to the brink of death but he does move back from Luke a little to properly look at his face. Still handsome after twenty years of being away from him, blue eyes like gems Han wishes he could have gotten in his smuggling days; the thought of Luke remaining so timeless even as his world crumbled relieves Han. Something so constant as Luke and his presence should never be tampered with.

 

He kisses him then (how can he not? It’s been too long and he’s quite frankly tired of talking, prefers this to chatter any day), moving into his space again to let Luke’s mouth brush against his own. It’s a decidedly more different terrain than he’s used to, the progression of years making him lose his feel for what he remembers Luke being like in this way. Soon he gets on the right path, lets his hands cradle Luke’s skull by way of his fingers slotted under his jaw, and tilts his face to adjust the angle.

 

“Hey, Han, just wanted to let you know – oh, okay,” someone who sounds a hell of a lot like Poe starts then abruptly ends once he sees the way the two are arranged on the bed. Han pulls away to look over his shoulder as if to say _I will put the fear of God into you, boy, if you so choose to continue interfering_ and Poe catches the hint without comment. As he’s walking away, he opens his mouth again to speak. “You’ll lose a stitch necking like that if you’re not careful.”

 

Luke snickers and pulls Han back to him. “I like him. He’s been around my way a lot.” Han bets he has, playfully nosy, but for all that he knocks Poe for, he’s always enjoyed the kid. Even the way he seems to interrupt each and every scenario Han’s ever had where intrusion wasn’t required. After all, he’s been around Han long enough to grow on him, as hard as it is to admit that.

 

“Yeah?” he says with a thumb stroking below Luke’s eye. He likes just how receptive Luke is to anything and anyone, no matter how silly they manage to be around the two of them. Again, one of many things he’s enjoyed about Luke over these last few years that’s fortunately not dimmed while other things have. “I’ll keep him around, I guess. For you.”

 

“Appreciate that,” Luke comments with one final kiss to Han’s cheek. Han doesn’t ignore the way the simple affectionate gesture makes his knees lose a little stability, even though he’s sitting down and at no risk of falling because of it. “And if you play your cards right, Leia will want to keep you around, too.”

 

“I sure hope so,” Han drawls. He really is hoping she doesn’t eject him off to a foreign planet somewhere for instilling a fear like no other in her. From what she’s shown him it’s not really a possibility but he’s still wary. He turns his attentions back to Luke. One of his knuckles taps at the underside of Luke’s chin again. “I’m not done with you yet.”


	3. et benedictus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ben returns, han tries to sort things out. a lot of things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> saw TFA again today aaaaaaaand this wasn't quite done yet
> 
> enjoy

Han’s woken up the next morning by someone shaking vigorously on his shoulder.

 

He grumbles and rolls over to face the intruder, who’s a shape that could be Poe Dameron if the room wasn’t so dark. Poe is dressed in his finest, pajama pants and a long sleeved shirt that falls over his hands so that it’s caught in his grasp as he tries to wake up Han.

 

“Han,” Poe whispers like Han hasn’t already been woken up fully by his disturbing. “Reconnaissance is back for the night. They’ve got someone with them.”

 

Han clears his throat and tries to imagine who might have come in the crosshairs of the Resistance. It really could be anyone, a stray sympathizer from the First Order, who’s to say? Poe too takes a second to gather his thoughts.

 

“It’s Ben, Han. They’ve got him.” Han’s out of his bed in a flat second, shoving his bare feet into his shoes and following Poe out into the central room of the headquarters.

 

There, Leia is huddled around a central computer, listening to someone unknown feed her details through a headset. She nods intently but he can see even from a distance she’s conflicted by something.

 

Out of the corner of her eye she spots him and tugs the headset down to her neck. She waves him over, a quick and short little motion he hasn’t seen in ages but somehow knows exactly how to respond. As Han gets closer he can hear the person in the headset speaking indistinctly, something along the lines of, _BP is 110/75, heart rate’s holding steady at 90, ma’am. The cut over his face got a vessel hit and the blood loss was pretty bad. A few more hours and he’d have succumbed to that along with the cold._

“They got him in the woods where they rescued Finn and Rey earlier,” Leia explains, sounding more exhausted than ever. He lets one arm find its way around her shoulder and she leans into him reflexively as she continues to speak. “It was bad. The cut across his face almost killed him, blinded him too. The medics have got him down there now but they’re asking me to stay up here until he’s out of the woods.”

 

Han starts running through all sorts of scenarios in his mind. He can see it as if it is right there before him, his son’s face pressed into the snow, blood staining the pure white, body sinking into the soft give of the winter ground. That same boy who fell thirty feet from a wing of the Falcon and didn’t shed a tear even as he was stitched up, arm plated in plaster cast, wiping evidential tears from his face with a beaming smile at his father.

 

He wants that boy back.

 

In some ways he does have his son back, here with him physically just a few feet below where he stands, but now it is different. It is so different and he has no idea what to do with it anymore. So many years have passed between them and the confidence in his own ability to mend roads that have been so ruined and destroyed is fading with each passing day. But he supposes he’s not without help; Leia and Luke are there always to help him. Like they always have.

 

“He’s going to live, right?” Han asks and Leia, fortunately, nods. He was sure of it but preferred a second opinion to his own. It’s better than breaking the rule and going down there himself to put one finger to his son’s throat, feel the pulse of life reassure him much more than a nod of the head.

 

The rest of the night is passed fretfully. It’s still so tempting to go down to the medical ward and see him but they resist the urge until late the next morning. The sun is starting to hide beneath heavy cloud cover when Han does escort Leia down to the place they’ve been tiptoeing around for hours.

 

A glass window shields them from Ben, where he lies in a bed prostrate not with a medically induced coma but well-needed, still exhausted rest aided by a light sedative – Han can see the IV drip in the corner leaking unknown contents into his son.

 

Leia makes a noise in the back of her throat at the sign of her child, so much older now, no longer the teenager she watched leave her almost forever. Her hand skirts with a light touch against the bottom of the glass, almost yearning to reach out but faltering ultimately.

 

Han sees it, confronts it. “It was different when he was little and took the nose dive off of the Falcon, huh?” She looks at him with a strange sort of smile. For weeks she was furious at him for even taking his eyes off of Ben long enough to let it happen but she supposes it was bound to happen soon.

 

Since he was little Ben enjoyed heights unlike anyone else she had ever met, finding him after thinking he was gone in the nooks and crannies of the Falcon, most of the time playing quietly or sound asleep beneath Han’s spare jackets. Like clockwork she’d manhandle him down from the treacherous height and tuck him away in his room or his bed, wherever the situation fit, and left without worry knowing that her son wasn’t at risk of falling.

 

“He was a dangerous little thing,” she recalls with the little boy sleeping on a high shelf fresh in her mind as if it occurred yesterday. Chewie was close by as well, trilling at her when she came flying down the hall when she discovered he wasn’t where he was told to be if he were to play. “You weren’t there for most of his shenanigans. Once I had to peel him off the top of the Falcon.”

 

Han snorts, remembering Chewie recounting that event in great detail to him later on. Ben had cried and cried once he found out he couldn’t see sights better on top of a ship, mostly because Leia had found out his little plot and foiled it quickly.

 

Han couldn’t help laughing when he asked his little boy how it was he was discovered – _Momma said she couldn’t find me and she always knew I went up there!_ His son’s tears dried when he was promised a romp around in the captain’s chair, later sitting on Han’s knee as the Falcon and her crew was taken out of orbit and onto yet another planet.

 

Han watches a medical droid drift past him slowly and into Ben’s room, the door opening quietly. Metal hands work to change the bandage on his son’s face, replacing it with a clean one after having detecting blood pooling beneath the surface. The sight of the wound makes something in Han’s stomach roil; it’s deep for sure, pulled back together with vicious black stitches. It is something that will heal superficially but will take ages to heal otherwise.

 

“They’re going to take him off the anesthesia soon,” Leia explains with his chart in her hand, flipping through its contents slowly as to examine every minute detail. “I told them not to put him on that one that makes him sick, I remember someone giving that to him when we were at that medical base for him to get his tonsils taken out. They said it was okay but they weren’t the ones cleaning up the puke later that night so that begs to differ.”

 

He admires her ability to remember the little things, he knows for a fact that his life is a testament to his own failure to retain things that would be useful down the line. Then another droid comes by, chatters something to Leia that Han can’t make out, and she turns to him. “We can go in now if we want, be with him when they cut the medicine off.”

 

Han lingers for a second outside while Leia goes in without a second thought. Her hand goes to his, pulling it out from beneath a thin bed sheet to hold it between her own fingers. She closes her eyes at the feel of her son with her again after much too long apart. Han walks in and stands behind her, one of his hands on her shoulder.

 

Ben blinks awake a few minutes later, his eyes struggling to focus. He finds his parents after scanning over the entirety of the room to evaluate where he is. Brow furrowing he looks away from his father and sees his mother, regards her with a peculiar stare. Leia doesn’t think anything of it and responds to Ben the only way she knows how.

 

“Hi, my love,” she whispers and again Ben closes his eyes, tries and fails to let her voice affect him as much as it is. It’s been years since he’s heard words leave that mouth and foreign as it is, he wouldn’t imagine going any longer without it. Tough but fair was how he remembered his mother, stringent with some things but not without her moments of weakness. “You’re at the resistance’s base. You are here in this medical ward, and you are safe.” His hands pass over his chest and arms tentatively; he is searching for any further signs of damage the droids might have missed in the near melee his rescue nearly became.

 

The First Order had taken notice immediately and faced off with several pilots tasked with returning Ben to the base. It had been a quick but brusque battle, both sides taking an even split of just one casualty, and had retreated without much afterthought when it became clear that they wanted nothing more but to retrieve the member of their side that had gone to the wrong half.

 

Ben finds Han in the cloud made of anesthetic still looming in his head. As best as they can his eyes widen and he jerks away in shame. If he can time it right, think about it at just the right time in life, he can feel the jolting buzz of the lightsaber as it pierced his father’s chest. The hiss of air leaving his lungs, the tear of muscle and skin as it protected vital organs, all that culminates in him leaning over the bed now in a violent heave.

 

Leia kneels while dragging over a clean bucket hidden beneath the bed. Nothing fortunately falls into it, and she touches the back of her son’s head in comfort. He still gags, coughs up nothing for his stomach is empty after hours of turmoil. Han stands passively watching his son deal with the many consequences of choices made in past months, unable to respond just now. He wouldn’t know what to say, what to do, to ease his son’s pain.

 

There wasn’t much time to stop and eat while he was the entity known as Kylo Ren, barely managing a quick stop at the cafeteria used by the Stormtroopers for whatever he could get his hands on. That didn’t serve to treat his body well and after months of this life he was getting ready to say to hell with it all, as if his prior commitments to what he understood as Darth Vader would let him do otherwise.

 

Until now, back into the arms of the people who gave him life, does he realize that commitment was to nothing but a false prophet, a misconceived notion brought on by his blind ambition to live a legacy he didn’t think was through. He’s got to stop thinking of it now, now if he’s going to rid himself of that life and forge a new one with a family he left behind.

 

Leia helps him back onto the bed, easing his body back into a resting position and bringing a damp cloth to his face to dab away fresh sweat. Han plays his part too, helping the blankets previously disrupted back onto his son’s form, pulling them from an off-kilter slump into a more assembled pile.

 

Ben struggles for breath, monitors around him screaming their alarm at the state of the person they’re attached to. Leia is firing on all cylinders trying to get the droids back in to stabilize him, Han stands to the side feeling as useless as he ever has before in their life. Although, this isn’t the most disheveled they’ve been before.

 

Ben’s birth was a little more unorganized.

 

_It was an orchestrated affair, the arrival of Ben estimated on one date while the child himself arrived at a time three days after said date and right as they were handling business on a planet Han knew nothing about, despite it all, the important people in Leia’s life were at her side. If you consider at her side staring from across the room due to her hurdling threats at them left and right, the droids even too terrified to approach her even as she delivered Ben._

_Obviously that didn’t matter once Ben was out, screaming in Leia’s arms. Han was polarized by that little being, drawn into him with sudden intrigue. There was quite a bit to look at – Ben had no hair, arms like marshmallows, and lungs unlike anything Han heard of in his life – so his entrancement was justified._

_Finally a droid came over, plucked the baby from her and cleaned him. Then Han could agree with what people always thought of babies, agreeing with anyone who ever spoke of him about kids telling about how fascinating it was to hold him in one arm. Luke got in on his fair share of holding his new nephew too, the third to hold the new little boy following his parents._

Luke… Han goes back to that man downstairs, still out of the loop regarding Ben’s recovery. He wants to go get him, show him that they’re working on fixing something he blamed himself for, but he can’t do it now. Not now, not while Ben’s like this. There’s time now that they didn’t have earlier.

 

“You need to rest,” Leia tells her son quietly. He nods as if he’s got any other response to that statement – he’s tired, no; he’s so tired it hurts him to the quick to even dwell on it – and settles back onto his pillow. Reaching up as much as her height will allow her, she presses her lips to his forehead. She lingers just for a second, lets her hand graze over his hair in a touch she hasn’t felt in years, and pulls away from him. Leia’s hand takes Han’s, and they depart.

 

Han can’t stop thinking about his son even as he’s allowed to rest following the ordeal of the late morning. Seeing his son in a light that was not the center of Starkiller Base is so bizarre, his face so different yet familiar at the same time. He and Poe carry on activities at the base, tending to the _Falcon_ and sitting in on meetings Leia hosts regarding the last remnants of the First Order.

 

Later in the day, following dinner in the mess, Leia gets someone calling for her on a nearby intercom. She crosses the room to answer the call; a brief statement barked into the mike then cut off. All Han catches, all he can really hear from his seat across the room, is _Luke – in medical bay – should I allow him in?_

Han stands up before Leia can leave the room and bolts downstairs to the medical bay. There he finds Luke standing much like he and Leia were earlier, at the window with no intention of crossing the threshold. The storm raging behind Luke’s eyes could be made of anything, brewing earlier when Han saw him but now rising to a fever pitch as he sets eyes on a person he hasn’t seen in eighteen years.

 

“Luke?” Han asks when the silence between them grows to be too much for him to handle. He is given no response, the consideration the uncle gives his nephew continuing. “He’s going to make it, you know. Physically, sure, but we’re still working on a lot of the other stuff.”

 

Luke turns to him then, recognizing the “other stuff” spoken of as forged by him and him alone, and his pleading glare weighs Han down as if it were tied to his leg and made of iron. His face threatens to break with the brunt of it but he pulls it back together at the very last second.

 

“I know, I know what you’re thinking.” Han doesn’t, he really says this to placate his brother-in-law, but it’s enough to stoke the fire. Luke walks over to him and the two men end up shoulder to shoulder, wanting to ground himself with Han’s presence that previously was nearly denied. “He had a little… situation earlier so they made us leave to let him rest. Maybe later they’ll let you in, yeah?”

 

“He doesn’t want to see me,” Luke’s disembodied voice admits sadly. “When he sees me he sees failure. He sees weakness.” Han couldn’t disagree any more than if he had all the words in the world to do so. There is nothing about Luke, to him, to anyone with a sensible mind that could suggest that he is weak.

 

“He sees his uncle,” Han offers but still Luke’s face doesn’t budge. It retains an air of sadness Han hasn’t seen in years and even then, it was something that he never wanted to see again on someone like him. “He sees someone he loves, I bet. He loves you. I don’t think any amount of stuff Snoke fed him could undo something like that, what you two had.”

 

Luke’s demeanor says otherwise. He stands like someone’s wound him up like an old toy, stiff and unforgiving with no chance of relaxing no matter how much Han works to placate him. Then Han puts one arm around him, draws him close like they were so many years before the First Order was even a possibility. That works to stop Luke from trembling and Han silently takes in the contact he’s gone without for so long.

 

Someone steps out from Ben’s room and beckons them close with a noise. They follow and in the crook of his arm Han feels Luke’s breathing hitch. He squeezes, lightly, and Luke braces again as he starts to step closer to his nephew.

 

“Ben,” Han says, grimacing when he thinks about the way he had said his son’s name in such anguish days before. Ben stirs once again but his face falls when his eyes catch sight of his uncle. He too recollects himself, regains the almost cold poise Han watched him take on as he commanded Stormtroopers as Kylo Ren.

 

“Luke,” Ben’s voice is soft and lacking in any sort of retaliatory emotion that Han can pick up, that he was expecting. The way he says his uncle’s name is like when someone spots a friend they haven’t seen in weeks, maybe even months. Luke remains with that same sad look on his face, defeated but still standing in everlasting perseverance.

 

“Uncle, I…” Ben trails off as if what he’s got to say suddenly has no meaning. Stopping, he purses his lips, opens his mouth a little like the thought has returned to him once more ready to be spoken, but falters again. He looks to his father to complete his words when even Han doesn’t know what to offer to this situation.

 

“Don’t,” is all Luke says, pulling Ben to him and for the moment, for feeling his nephew back with him again, ignoring all that’s transpired between them. Han hears Luke sigh as he and Ben embrace, a sound of relief that hasn’t come from him in years. “I don’t want to hear it, not right now.” Luke’s hand goes to the back of Ben’s head to hold him closer.

 

He swallows past a lump in his throat that could be tears if he had the energy to make it so; to know that Ben finally, finally saw his way back to them overwhelms him even more than anything else that has happened to him in past weeks. “It’s been too long without you to let that be the first thing said between us.”

 

Ben nods, he too not wanting to speak of the things he’s done to so many people over the last few years. Those are issues he’ll handle in time, handle with the right people at his side, and in the right place as well. For now, he lets his uncle hold onto him, almost for dear life as a few seconds pass. Luke is able to say now that his apprentice is back to him, physically and in time emotionally.


End file.
